a like premise,
they would have seen--had they reasoned upon the matter--that capital is
a source of production to its proprietor only by virtue of the right of
occupancy, and that this production is therefore illegitimate. Indeed,
if labor is the sole basis of property, I cease to be proprietor of my
field as soon as I receive rent for it from another. This we have
shown beyond all cavil. It is the same with all capital; so that to put
capital in an enterprise, is, by the law's decision, to exchange it
for an equivalent sum in products. I will not enter again upon this
now useless discussion, since I propose, in the following chapter, to
exhaust the subject of PRODUCTION BY CAPITAL.

Thus, capital can be exchanged, but cannot be a source of income.

LABOR and SKILL remain; or, as St. Simon puts it, RESULTS and
CAPACITIES. I will examine them successively.

Should wages be governed by labor? In other words, is it just that
he who does the most should get the most? I beg the reader to pay the
closest attention to this point.

To solve the problem with one stroke, we have only to ask ourselves
the following question: "Is labor a CONDITION or a STRUGGLE?" The reply
seems plain.

God said to man, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,"--that
is, thou shalt produce thy own bread: with more or less ease, according
to thy skill in directing and combining thy efforts, thou shalt labor.
God did not say, "Thou shalt quarrel with thy neighbor for thy bread;"
but, "Thou shalt labor by the side of thy neighbor, and ye shall dwell
together in harmony." Let us develop the meaning of this law, the
extreme simplicity of which renders it liable to misconstruction.

In labor, two things must be noticed and distinguished: ASSOCIATION and
AVAILABLE MATERIAL.

In so far as laborers are associated, they are equal; and it involves a
contradiction to say that one should be paid more than another. For,
as the product of one laborer can be paid for only in the product of
another laborer, if the two products are unequal, the remainder--or the
difference between the greater and the smaller--will not be acquired
by society; and, therefore, not being exchanged, will not affect the
equality of wages. There will result, it is true, in favor of the
stronger laborer a natural inequality, but not a social inequality; no
one having suffered by his strength and productive energy. In a word,
society exchanges only equal products--that is, r